This morning Kingston officially launched their HyperX Predator. This is an M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD using a Marvell 88SS9293 controller. We would normally paste their press photo here, but we were fortunate enough to get our own photo from one of the press events last night:

I can see just how this design went down. Marketing guy tells design guy "make this look cool". Design guy epically succeeds by leaving the PCIe data lane differential pair traces unmasked. There's no doubt this is a PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD, as you can clearly pick out the four sets of traces. It's a subtle thing that makes the HHHL adapter board look just so much cooler.

The HyperX Predator will also be available in a bare M.2 2280 form factor, seen here in a new Broadwell NUC:

The Marvell controller at use here is a native PCIe solution and should have no issue reaching 1.4 GB/sec reads and 1 GB/sec writes. Capacities will launch at 240 GB and 480GB, with a 960GB option coming mid 2015. We will publish a full performance review of this attractive new SSD just as soon as we get a sample in for testing.

The rear is fairly simple, but if you note the quad Gigabit Ethernet, you realize this is actually a NAS powerhouse. When linked to an appropriate business oriented server (Windows Server 2012, ESX Server, etc) with a quad Gigabit link, 450MB/sec can be achieved. Similar read speeds are possible even with the integrated hardware AES-256 encryption enabled, but write speeds will then be limited to just under 200 MB/sec. Additionally, multiple 1515+'s can be chained together to support up to a single 90TB array. I'll leave you with a cool photo of a NAS on fire, followed by the full press blast after the break.

These are essentially 850 EVO's in very small portable packaging. They support USB 3.0 speeds as well as UASP, so random IO performance should be very respectable. We have not tested it ourselves, but something on the order of 8,000 4k random IOPS should be achievable.

Claimed speeds are up to 450 MB/sec, likely limited by the 5Gb/sec USB 3.0 interface being used. 256 bit hardware-based AES is also included, with the drive unlockable by the use of a small software app that is embedded on the drive. The included cable is impressively thin considering it is a full USB 3.0 spec cable. The release states the lowest capacity 250GB model will sell for $180. Based on other data we have, the 500GB and 1TB capacities should sell for ~$350 and $650, respectively. We will review the T1 just as soon as we get back from CES later this week.

SanDisk has launched a few items of note this morning. There is a combination USB 3.0 / OTG capable flash drive, but the truly big news is a few updates to existing product lines.

First is an mSATA form factor of their existing and very popular Ultra II SSD. This is expected to perform similarly to its 2.5" SATA brother, but in the smaller form factor needed for some laptops, tablets, and so equipped desktop motherboards.

The other and perhaps most significant launch is the 'SSD Plus'. This is a sequel to SanDisk's original desktop SSD product, and is aimed squarely at the budget consumer that wants an SSD but doesn't necessarily need the best performing product.

The SSD Plus is SanDisk's attempt to beat the competing SSD prices right out of the gate, with launch MSRP's at $70 for 120GB ($0.58/GB) and $110 for 240GB ($0.46/GB). Those are among the lowest launch MSRP's we've seen to date, and that's not taking into account the sales that typically take place in the months after a given SSD launches.

We are going to be reviewing these as soon as we get them in. They are not meant to be super fast, but we doubt they would be what would be considered slow. So long as they are decent performers, that's a very good launch price.

Many of the storage announcements this year are under embargo until tomorrow or later in the week. Fortunately there was plenty of things on display out in the open - meaning fair game for me to photograph and present to you in this quick photo walkthrough.

The HGST Ultrastar He8 was on display. This is a 7-platter Helium filled HDD. The lower density atmosphere enables more platters and higher spin speeds without producing too much heat for the drive to handle.

The added platters also enable a very large capacity of 8TB, all while consuming less power than most other available non-He HDD's, which is attractive for enterprise usage where racks upon racks are filled with these drives.

The display model we saw here was covered with plexiglass, but the DriveSavers folks had one completely open in all of its glory:

Seeing the head pack out of a drive is rare, as you're supposed to only get to that point in a clean room environment (unless you don't want your data back, that is). DriveSavers told us the challenge to recovery from an He HDD is getting the Helium back into the housing prior to closing it back up after a failed component replacement. Here's a closer look at that head pack. Note the small logic die built into the ribbon - this component needs to be mounted as close as possible to the heads to minimize interference and signal loss from the very high frequency signal coming from the read heads:

DriveSavers also has recently announced data recovery capability and partnership with SanDisk. There is a separate announcement we will be covering later in the week, but since we're talking about SanDisk, here is a look at the non-embargoed products we were allowed to show for now:

From left: UltraDIMM, FusionIO Atomic, Optimus Max, Optimus MAX (opened), Optimus ECO. More interesting here is that SanDisk is able to pack 4TB into the Optimus form factor. They accomplish this by a unique folding PCB design shown below in unfolded form:

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, Lenovo announced updates and new additions to its Think-branded products aimed at business customers. New ThinkPad PCs, ThinkVision displays, and stackable ThinkPad accessories are launching early this year.

ThinkPad Stack

The ThinkPad Stack represents a set of independent stackable accessories for business users to pair with their notebook or tablet. The Stack pieces can be placed atop each other interchangeably using a magnetic interlock system and can pass both power and data through the stack in order to connect to power and/or a PC with fewer cables. At launch, there are four accessories: a Bluetooth speaker, portable power bank, wireless hotspot, and a 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive. You will be able to stack any combination of the four accessories together or remove a piece to take with you to a meeting.

The portable hard drive connects over a micro USB 3.0 connection to support fast transfer speeds. The wireless access point is able to take either a RJ45 wired Ethernet or 3G/4G cellular connection (using a wireless dongle) and broadcast out a Wi-Fi connection to allow you to share the Internet connection with multiple devices. The Bluetooth speaker accessory is aimed at business users wanting a simple device that can be used for conference calls (it has two 2W speakers and a noise cancelling microphone along with 3.5mm auxiliary and micro-USB line inputs). Finally, the power bank has a 10,000 mAh battery capacity and can charge two devices at 5V 2.1A on one port and 1A on the other port. Note that the speaker and hotspot have their own batteries as well.

The ThinkPad Stack accessories will be available in April with pricing as follows:

Stack Accessory

Pricing

Availability

ThinkPad Stack Bluetooth Speaker

$89.99

April

ThinkPad Stack 10000mAh Power Bank

$49.99

April

ThinkPad Wireless Access Point / 1TB Hard Drive Kit

$199.99

April

As such, the entire stack of stacks will run you just under $340 USD. The full stack weighs 861 grams or about 1.9 pounds and measures 136mm x 76mm (5.35" x 2.99"). It is a neat concept that should complement Lenovo's PCs well.

If you are like me, you probably thought the world of USB was going to be stable for a bit. Not so much as it turns out! MSI was showing off a couple of new products in its suite at CES 2015 that showcase new performance levels for USB as well as a much-needed new connector type.

First up, USB 3.1, the upgrade that includes performance as high as single channel Thunderbolt, 10 Gbps. MSI will be shipping USB 3.1 on a new revision of the GT72 gaming notebook as well as on the X99A Gaming 9 ACK motherboard shipping in February or March. Each will feature two ports of USB 3.1 capable of some impressive speeds.

These results are based on a RAID-0 implementation of a pair of Intel SSD 730 SSDs running on a prototype USB 3.1 capable controller that MSI didn't want us to show you. Seeing USB speeds reaching as high as 694 MB/s are impressive, exceeding that of the best USB 3.0 speeds we have seen at 470 MB/s. Considering we are looking at very early devices and software implementations, MSI's results on this board are fantastic.

Maybe more exciting than a speed boost to some USB users is implementation of the USB Type-C connector on the MSI Z97A Gaming 6 motherboard due in the same time frame.

There are several advantages to this new connector for both users and OEMs. First, it is reversible meaning you can plug plug the connector in upside down and it will work (finally!). It is also small, able to fit on the slimmest phones and tablets. Both sides of the cable are going to be the same, so any device that can use a Type-C connector will be able to use most any cable.

Power delivery also improves - 10 watts (5V at 2A), 60 watts (12V at 5A) and even up to 100 watts (20V at 5A)! And all of this power can be sent through that tiny Type-C connector as well leaving the possibility of charging your laptop through the same connector as your phone.

Expect both USB 3.1 as well as Type-C connectors to be a big shift in the middle of Q1.

At the SATA-IO booth at Storage Visions, they have a functional demo of Western Digital prototype hybrid HDD/SSD's.

These are not hybrid in the traditional sense, as the SSD portion (128GB JMicron based controller driving Toshiba flash in the case of these prototypes) is logically separated from the HDD portion (a standard 4TB Black in this case).

Given that a SATA Express link can simultaneously pass a PCIe 2.0 x2 link in addition to a SATA 6Gbit/sec link, this one unit can link an SSD and an HDD simultaneously and independently. Above you see the standard SATA Express connector, and below is how those pins are connected at the drive itself:

Note the additional pins at what is usually the black side of the connector.

The rest of the connector is mostly a standard SATA connector that you are used to seeing.

At the demo, we saw a single 3.5" hybrid unit booting from the SSD portion and using the 4TB HDD for mass storage, all from the same device. The second demo had a separate boot drive and linked a pair of these prototype units in a dual RAID. Configured through Windows dynamic volumes, a RAID of the HDD's offered the increased performance you might expect from a pair of 4TB WD Blacks. The SSD portion of each unit was also RAIDed, and we saw their combined throughput as just over 1GB/sec. That was not much more than what a pair of RAIDed SATA 6Gb/sec SSDs would do, but realize this was being accomplished in addition to (and independently of) the HDD portions.

We were not allowed to start removing screws, but here's a look at the accessible portion of the logic board for this drive:

There is a JMicron controller paired with a single package of Toshiba flash. Toshiba has shown they can contain 128GB in a single package, so no problems there.

We're not sure where this technology is headed as the recent trend has been towards sticking with the standard SATA link for mass storage and M.2 SSDs plugged directly into the added port we've been seeing in many recent motherboards. We'll keep an eye on this technology moving forward, but for now at least we have seen it in the flesh and fully functional.

The StarTech Thunderbolt Dual SSD Enclosure S252SMTB3 is fairly expensive at just over $200 empty but thankfully they included a Thunderbolt cable; you will need to provide the second cable if you intend to daisy chain devices. This model uses the first generation 10Gbps interface and allows you to install two SSDs in either RAID 0 or RAID 1. In RAID 1 the drives performed as you would expect with the reads hitting close to theoretical maximum and write sitting just below half of that speed. In RAID 0 the reads and writes on the 128 GB Corsair Force GS SSDs used by Bjorn3D for testing hit their maximum theoretical speeds; it will be very interesting to see the results of faster SSDs on a new 20Gbps model of enclosure. If you want external storage that is as fast as your internal drives then this is worth looking at.

"Even though it is popular to use a network attached storage sometimes it is nice to have storage closer to the computer, for example for Timemachine backup on a Mac or just as a way to add more storage space on a laptop with a small SSD. The Startech enclosure we are reviewing today, the StarTech Thunderbolt Dual SSD Enclosure S252SMTB3, comes with a Thunderbolt interface that not only lets you daisy-chain it with several other peripherals but also offers a lot of bandwidth making it a perfect option for increasing the storage space on a Mac Book Air or other computer with little initial storage. After testing it turns out that it performs just as well as expected with just a few minor complaints."

You can see in Allyn's review from February, he really liked the drive. He notes that it is a bit hot and power hungry, but he also notes that the controller is overclocked and that is probably why you want to buy it. If you are Canadian, or are somehow able to make a purchase in Canada, this is a ridiculous price. For everyone else, who knows? It might be a sign that its price could drop altogether. Either that, or NCIX and DirectCanada just feel like throwing money around today.

You may want to build a server consisting of enterprise level SSDs to make sure it provides the best possible speeds to anyone accessing data stored there but the chances of you getting the budget for it are slim going on none. That is why reading the guide on building servers from Modders Inc is worth your time if you find yourself pondering the best way to build a storage server on a budget without making it abysmally slow. You have many choices when you are designing a storage server but if you are not quite sure where to start the list of components and the arguments for their usefulness will get you headed in the right direction. For example the LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i is an impressive RAID controller and with good SAS HDDs you can expect to see very good data throughput and will be more important than the CPU you select. Check out the article right here.

"IT infrastructure and storage has always been part of serious conversation between IT engineers and their bosses. As always IT Engineers want to use the best of the newest technologies while their bosses want to keep every project under a tight budget. It's always an ongoing battle, however both sides always come to some mutual agreement that benefits both sides."

Once a technology is released to the public, the only thing stopping you from knowing how it works is the ability to look inside. With detailed imagery of 32-layer VNAND recently released by TechInsights, not only was Andy able to conduct a very thorough analysis at his blog, we are able to get some incredibly detailed looks at just what makes this new flash memory tick:

1x: The 3D VNAND die itself. We'll use this as a point of reference of the magnification levels moving forward.

350x: This is the edge of the die, showing how the word (data) lines are connected to the individual layers.

1,500x: There it is, all 32 layers in all of their vertical glory. The only thing more amazing about the technology at play to create such a complex 3D structure at such a small scale, is the technology used to slice it in half (some of the material is tungsten) and take such a detailed 'picture' of that cross section.

30,000x: Finally, we have a top down slice of the channels themselves. This lets us get a good idea of the rough process node at play here. While the columns are 80nm in diameter, there are other features that are smaller, so the process itself still seemes to be in the ~40nm range.

Our focus is of course on the performance more than the extremeny low level bits, but it is definitely cool to see imagery of this new tech. For those curious, we encourage you to check out the detailed analysis done over at 3DInCities.

Not only does Samsung's new 850 EVO family introduce us to three dimensional triple level cell NAND, it also incorporates an SLC cache to boost write speeds. The Tech Report received the 250GB and 1TB models to test, with a spotlight on how they fared against the 840 Pro and 840 Evo. Their testing shows that the new way of creating NAND has helped mitigate the reduction in speed which accompanied the first generation of TLC drives. There is no question that the SLC write cache also helps as long as it has space available but this new technology does come with a price, expect $500 for the 1TB and $150 for for the 250GB model. The 5 year warranty is a nice touch for those who have reliability concerns.

"Samsung's long-awaited 850 EVO SSD employs three-dimensional NAND with three bits per cell. It augments that TLC storage with an SLC write cache, and it has a higher endurance rating and longer warranty than most MLC drives. We've taken a closer look to see how it holds up against the competition."

Once again, we're talking about The Tech Report and their attempt at working SSDs to death. At the last checkpoint, 1.5 petabytes of total writes, the Samsung 840 Pro and the Kingston HyperX 3K (240GB) became the final two. Which will become the sole survivor? How long will it go before dying? Who knows. We just crossed 2 petabytes and these things simply won't die.

So yeah, we have hit 2 petabytes and these drives seem to be chugging along. Neither of the two survivors have even displayed any major drops in read or write performance, at least not permanently. The Samsung 840 Pro has experienced a few, temporary dips in write performance, from around 500MB/s to around 450MB/s, boo hoo, but has recovered each time.

That said, both drives are using their reserve space. The Samsung 840 Pro has used about 60 percent of its reserve in the last 1300 TB of writes, following a fairly linear decline. If it continues, this drive should finally kick the bucket just before 3 petabytes of writes (~2.87PB). The Kingston HyperX, on the other hand, who knows. That SSD seems to have had a rough time over the last 500TB, but that could be just a hiccup. It could also be on its way out, who knows?

It is now down to two drives at The Tech Report, only the Samsung 840 Pro and a HyperX 3K which was brought in to replace an model with no stamina have reached the 2 petabyte mark and are still going. The 840 Pro has now used 61% of its used block reserve due to flash failures and while the Sandforce compression has allowed the HyperX to hit this mark with only 1.4 petabytes actually written it has still had 31 sectors reallocated and 2 uncorrectible errors. That puts the HyperX in a difficult spot in that while it is still writing data it is not truly trustworthy anymore. The drive speeds have remained remarkably consistent though the 840 is slowing down somewhat over time, check out the actual benchmark results in the latest update to The Tech Report's torture test.

"Our SSD Endurance Experiment has reached an astounding two petabytes of writes. Only two drives remain, and they're coping very differently. We've checked in on their health and performance to see how each one is holding up."

It has been a while since we last talked about the OCZ ARC family but seeing as how you can currently pick up the 256GB model for $100 it seems a good time to revisit the drive. Bjorn3D recently reviewed this drive and it's Indilinx Barefoot M10 controller and Toshiba A19 nm flash. Before delving into the speeds this drive is capable of it is worth reminding possible purchasers of the three year ShieldPlus warranty, if you encounter issues with the drive OCZ will ship you out a brand new advanced replacement along with a prepaid return label to the customer which you then use to send your failed drive back. As far as the performance of this drive, it is a close match to the Crucial MX 100, not the best drive out there but certainly good all around at this price point. In fact with the MX 100 costing only $10 more its slightly better performance might make it more attractive but Crucial's warranty is not as user friendly as OCZs. Check out the full review to see which company you feel deserves your money.

"As expected, with OCZ now owned by Toshiba, OCZ would be using the in-house brew Toshiba NAND for their SSDs as oppose to Intel/Micron. OCZ has transitioned their mainstream Vertex SSDs to the Toshiba NAND already. And the latest budget line of SSD, the ARC 100, continues the trend of using all in-house made components of pairing the Indilinx controller with the Toshiba NAND."

Allyn recently reviewed the Corsair Neutron Series XT but as it is a brand new controller it is always worth a second opinion. The Tech Report also recently tested this SSD, with its four core PS3110 controller and A19 variant of Toshiba's 19-nm MLC NAND. Three of those cores are devoted to behind the scenes tasks such as garbage collection which should help performance when the drive starts to approach full capacity. When testing performance they did see improvements from the first Phison controlled drive, the Force Series LS which sits at the bottom of their performance ranking. That was not all that held back this drive, lack of support for features which have become common such as Microsoft eDrive put this drive behind the top competition and if Corsair is to make this drive a contender they are going to have to think very carefully about what the MSRP will be.

"Corsair's new Neutron Series XT pairs a quad-core Phison controller with Toshiba's latest MLC NAND. We've taken the 240GB version for a spin to see if it can hang with the big boys."

When you use Linux you have a choice as to which file system you wish to use, a choice that never occurs to most Windows users but can spark an argument every bit as vicious as the eternal debate over EMACS versus VIM versus whichever text editor you prefer. There has not been much SSD benchmarking done on alternate files systems until now, Phoronix has benchmarked the Intel 530 series SSD in numerous configurations on Btrfs, EXT4, XFS, and F2FS. With four of the 120GB model available they were able to test the speed of the drives in RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 1+0. There is obviously still some compatibility issues as some tests failed to run in certain configurations but overall these drives performed as expected. While the results did not vary widely it is worth reading through their article if you plan on building a high speed storage machine which will run Linux.

Since we reviewed the Intel SSD DC P3700, many of you have been drooling over the idea of an 18-channel NVMe PCIe SSD, even more so given that the P3500 variant was to launch at a $1.50/GB target price. It appears we are getting closer to that release, as the P3500 has been appearing on some web sites in pre-order or out of stock status.

Today Intel refreshed their Datacenter Series of SSDs, specifically their DC S3500. We have reviewed this model in the past. It uses the same controller that is present in the S3700, as well as the SSD 730 Series (though it is overclocked in that series).

The full line of Intel Datacenter SSDs (minus the P3700). DC S3500 is just right of center.

Todays refresh includes higher capacities to the S3500, which now include 1.2TB and 1.6TB on the hign end of capacity. This suggests that Intel is stacking 20nm dies as many as 8 to a package. IOPS performance sees a slight penalty at these new higher capacities, while maximum sequentials are a bit higher due to the increased die count.

Also announced was an M.2 version of the S3500. This packaging is limited to only a few capacity points (80GB, 120GB, 340GB), and is p;rimarily meant for applications where data integrity is critical (i.e. ATM's, server boot partitions, etc).

A standard press blast was unavailable, but full specs are listed after the break.